


Into the Great Unknown

by Test_Tube_Writer



Series: Nuclear Throne Story Mode [2]
Category: Nuclear Throne (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, IT WASNT SUPPOSED TO BE SO LONG BUT, I’m full of love and ideas for nt so here’s this, Resues, Shady’s back with a brand new invention, first encounters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22455580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Test_Tube_Writer/pseuds/Test_Tube_Writer
Summary: Officer Shani of The I.D.P.D lands in the wasteland after stealing the Portal Strike. She’s on a solo mission to rescue her best friend Hunter, but the wasteland inhabitants prove to be much more hospitable than she’d thought.
Series: Nuclear Throne Story Mode [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609027
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Into the Great Unknown

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed! Especially if you have any advice on how I can improve my writing.

Twisting. Turning. Pulling. Pushing. Swirling. Whirling. 

Shani closed her eyes against the dark. It was so dark. 

Where is up? Where is down?

She clutched her blaster like a life preserver. Its fins dug into her chest. 

Am I upside down? Or inside out?

This portal wasn't anything like the ones she’d gone through in training. It tossed her to and fro and flipped her end over end. She'd had a helmet when she first entered, but now her hair was flying into her eyes. Her mouth was opened to scream, but whether she was actually screaming or not she couldn't tell. The whistling of the wind and the crackle of energy were the only things she could hear. At least that meant that her hearing aid hadn't been taken like her helmet. 

There was a sudden flash of brilliant light and her eyes shot open as she hit the ground. Behind her the portal shut with a woosh, leaving her stranded in whatever dimension she had made it to. Wherever she was it was sweltering hot. 

She sat up and rubbed sand out of her eyes. Blearily she could see she was surrounded by it. Endless stretches of sand as far as she could see. Her bumpy ride through the portal had left her shaky, dizzy, and exhausted. A faint breeze tickled what parts of her face that weren't covered by her respirator. Faintly her brain realized that had she lost her respirator she would most likely be dying of radiation poisoning right now. 

It felt like she should say something. This was her first time outside her home dimension, her first time in a new world, even! She should mark this occasion with some sort of profound or courageous statement. 

“Shit.” A throbbing pain blossomed behind her eyes. The heat made her feel nauseous. 

“Fucking, desert.” She hissed. 

She laid down on her side in an attempt to make the world stop spinning. After the deafening noise of the portal, the current lack of noise was a relief to her ringing ears. Closing her eyes, she listened to the soothing quiet. Somehow, despite her throbbing head, she fell asleep. 

“It's weird that I'll be doing something by myself for once.”

“What? Are you saying you've never gone to the bathroom by yourself?”

“Ha ha ha, the men’s showers are communal, bitch.”

“So are ours, dipshit.”

He turned and stuck out his tongue at her. She grabbed a pillow off a nearby bed and threw it at him. Hunter swatted it away desperately. 

“That better not be Dave’s! He has lice!” He cried. 

“Oh poor you,” she crooned, putting her hands against her cheeks. “Out in the wasteland without any lice shampoo.”

He shook his head and double checked the gauges on his oxygen tank. “You know what, I take it back. The wasteland is gonna be a wonderful vacation from your nagging.” 

“You'll miss me,” she grinned. 

His back was turned to her. He was quiet for a while, fiddling with his oxygen tubes and the safety latches on his helmet. “I am.” He said solemnly. 

“Hunter?”

“Ugh, I'm sorry, Shan.” There was a waver in his voice as he scrubbed at his eyes. 

“Hunter!” She tried to get him to turn around, but her refused. Instead he jammed his helmet on his head as she slipped in front of him. 

“What's wrong?” She put her hands on his shoulders. 

He sniffed, a static filled crackling through his respirator. “I-it's-it's nothing. I'll tell you about it later.” He tried to wipe at his eyes but hit the visor instead. The tears on his sleeve left a wet smear across the lens. 

“Oh come on!” He stamped his foot. “I just cleaned this.”

Shani started giggling and soon they were both laughing. She found his microfiber cloth and dabbed at the mark for him. 

“Is it weird how much I mess with this thing?” 

Hunter wore his helmet everywhere. It made him more confident, and cleaning it gave him something to distract himself with when things got to be too much. 

“Only a little bit.” She scrutinized at her reflection in the visor. “If I find out you're hiding drugs in there…”

“Oh, as if.” He pushed her away playfully. “Like I don't have enough shit going on with me.”

Something nudged against her ribs. She slapped it away and turned around, mumbling pleas for five more minutes of sleep. A sharp boot kicked her in the back. Her eyes popped open and she rolled away kicking up sand as she stumbled to her feet. Shaking the sand from her face she looked up; what she saw made her stomach drop. Five I.D.P.D. officers surrounded her with their weapons drawn. 

The Portal Strike lay half buried in the sand behind them, too far for her to reach. She hadn't had time to put it on before using it. The portal must have spat it out before it closed. Her blaster was laying next to it. It had been knocked out of her arms when she landed. What rotten luck. 

“Officer Shani,” barked one of the soldiers, “we order you to stand down and return to HQ with us.”

Shani narrowed her eyes. “I’m not going back, yet. I’ve got an officer in need of retrieval.”

“Officer Shani, the Captain has made it clear that no people foreign to the I.D.P.D home dimension be allowed access to HQ.”

“And rogue officers aren't either,” another said. “Please, surrender.”

“Foreign?!” She cried. “He was my squad partner! We all trained together. He came to movie night every other Friday. Hunter’s one of us and he needs our help.”

One of the officers raised his blaster. “Any more sudden moves and we will shoot you. Treason is punishable by death, Officer Shani.”

“And abandoning a member of your team isn’t?” Her fists were clenched and under her respirator she ground her teeth. She had come so far, gotten outside the dimension even! All for what? To get captured immediately afterward because she took a nap? “What happened to ‘no man left behind?’”

The officers didn’t reply. Instead they all lifted their weapons and trained them on her. She bent her knees in a fighting stance. If she really was gonna go out this quickly then she would go down fighting. If she could disarm one of them fast enough she might have a chance to fight off the others, or to at least give them a few wounds before they gunned her down. 

Having been so focused on the officers and her battle plan she hadn’t noticed the three figures creeping up behind them. Fortunately, neither did the officers. There was a flurry of motion as the newcomers struck. The first cop fell face first into the sand, having been struck from behind by a classic guitar. The second fell almost at the same time, this time struck by a shovel. The three remaining officers turned in the direction of their fallen comrades and fired their weapons. Something shiny and purple darted between the shots and the unknown assailants. Giant crystals burst out of the ground and reflected the bullets back at the shooters, effectively killing them. 

Shani stared gape-mouthed at the dead I.D.P.D officers. It had taken less than a minute to dispose of them all. In the corner of her eye she saw a hand being offered to her. She took it, eyes still glued to one of the dead bodies. She couldn't see through the helmet’s reflective visor. She couldn't tell who it was that had been struck down, who had turned their guns on her. She looked away and rubbed at her eyes. She'd rather not know. 

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” She kept her head down while she blinked back tears and cleared her throat. She couldn't dwell on that now. 

“If you hadn't come when you did, well, I...probably wouldn't...be…” 

Her voice faded away as she looked up. Standing over one of the bodies, the one that had fallen first, was a green fish man. Fluorescent green skin that glistened damply in the sun, yellow fins protruding from the sides and top of his head, large yellow lips on a noseless face. A fish man. There was a FISH man infront of her! She watched him cradle a worn classical guitar in his arms and run his hands over the wood. There were webs between his fingers, and each finger was tipped in a long curved nail. 

Beside him the burst of crystals from earlier shrunk and smoothed until it resembled a vaguely human form. The crystal person was a wide body, mostly composed of a sharp jaw and two empty eye holes, suspended on squat legs and with two chunky arms protruding from the sides. The sentient rock placed a hand on the fish man’s arm and asked him something in a voice that whistled like wind through a cave. 

She was so shocked by the pair of them that she had completely forgotten she was holding someone's hand. When it began to pull away, she jerked her hand to her chest. She couldn't help the scream she let out when she looked into the eyes of the third mutant. Or, as many of them as she could look into. There were only eyes covering its bulbous head. It had a tall, gangly body and arms that stretched down past its knees. No, it didn't seem to have knees. It was propping a shovel against its meager dip of a shoulder, and the way its arm bent reminded her of old black and white rubber hose cartoons. It seemed offended that she'd screamed, if the glares were anything to go by. Most of the eyes facing her direction were narrowed and watching her angrily, while the eyes facing the two mutants looked over them for wounds. The rest of the eyes that she could see watched the sky and distant horizon with half-lidded boredom. 

The other two were watching her now as well. She looked around frantically for her blaster only to spot it in the hands of the purple rock mutant. The dizzy feeling from earlier returned and she sunk onto her knees. This was nothing, absolutely nothing, like her training. She had known that going alone would be risky, but before she had been thinking of harsh weather conditions or barrels of toxic waste she'd have to avoid. No, instead there were fish men with guitars and walking eyeball bouquets wielding shovels. The mutant simulations had always looked more or less like zombies from bad movies with tattered clothes and rotting skin. They had also been brainless and easy to fight. These mutants had planned an ambush, incapacitated five field officers, and at least one of them had some sort of special ability from what she'd seen the purple one do. She groaned and clasped her throbbing head. Was it a headache, or radiation poisoning? This whole mission was suicide. 

With her head bowed she couldn't see them, but she could hear the rock person exclaim something, and footsteps splashing through the sand towards her. She closed her eyes and waited for a blow, or a gunshot, but neither came. Instead she felt a firm hand on her back. Another cupped her chin and lifted it until she was looking at the rock mutant’s face. It was...smiling? Gently it brushed her bangs away from her forehead and pressed its palm against her skin. It was smooth and cool. The mutant ran its hands through her hair and over her scalp. Shani realized that it was feeling for wounds. While doing so it made soft noises in its airy, whistling voice. 

Lexicon unknown. 

Shani jumped at the shrill words that came from her hearing aid. The rock mutant pulled their hands back and made a surrendering motion. It made a questioning noise. 

Language file not found. Lexicon unknown. 

Shani’s eyes widened. It wasn't making noises, it was talking to her! 

The I.D.P.D were all required to wear translators on missions. A remnant rule from before the apocalypse had ravaged the other dimensions. During her trainee days Shani’s hearing aid had posed a problem with the translator. She couldn't wear both at the same time, and having the two devices near each other caused a screeching sound to erupt in her ears. Rather than dismiss an able bodied soldier, her captains had rigged her aid to double as a translator and a comm unit. She'd cheated her way through Spanish and quite a few other classes with it, but that was neither here nor there. 

Shani pointed at the round white orb on her temple that marked her cochlear implant. “I can't understand you.” She said slowly. 

The rock mutant leaned toward the blue one and asked it something. It rolled two of its eyes that the other couldn't see and mumbled something. Shani realized with horror that while the gangly mutant lacked a mouth it still had its vocal cords. They had always brushed over it in training, but mutants used to be people once. She returned the blue mutant’s stare, but without the distrustful glaring. What had it looked like before this? She shuddered. What had it been like to change into that?

“My name is Shani.” She said. 

The rock mutant puzzled over her words. It tried to copy them, but couldn't shape the same sounds with her stony mouth. Shani looked at the eyeball mutant, who threw out his arms as if to ask, ‘you think I can play translator?’

The fish mutant drew closer and barked something at the rock mutant. It replied and waved its hand. Shani guessed that with the way its body was made turning to face someone standing behind them difficult. The fish came closer until he was standing next to it. Shani suddenly felt very crowded and lightheaded with them so close. 

The fish man choked out a string of garbled words. The two others looked at him in confusion. 

Language file not found. Lexicon unknown. 

This mutant knew other languages! There had to be at least one that her aid would know. 

“I don't know that one either.” She told him. “Do you know any more?”

He cleared his throat and Shani tried not to stare at his gills. He tried a few more times, noticeably getting frustrated when she still couldn't comprehend. After being rewarded with another shake of her head he slapped his forehead and leaned back, grumbling angrily. Shani’s hearing aid chimed. 

Language file match found. Stand by for audio and verbal translation. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” he recited under his breath. “I knew more. Come on.”

“The translator knows that one!” Under her jumpsuit’s high collar the verbal translator whirred to life. It vibrated against her throat, editing her speech so that the mutant could understand. 

Under his heavy brows the fish man’s eyes widened. “Out of all the- Nevermind! Thank fuck.” He slapped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean that. I don't usually-”

“No, no, you're fine.” She couldn't help but laugh. “The feeling is mutual.” 

He smiled with huge, pointed teeth. Shani kept her face as neutral as she could. Those teeth looked big enough to take off one of her hands. 

“Name’s Fish.” He said. 

She raised an eyebrow. “Fish?”

“Yep, it fits better than my old one. No last name either. Not anymore.”

Shani laughed nervously, waiting for him to say it was a joke. When he didn't she went quiet. “You...actually named yourself Fish?”

He shrugged. “That's the way things are now. Rad messes with your memory sometimes, and since nobody looks the same anymore we just call each other by what we see.” 

He pointed at himself. “Fish,” he pointed at the rock mutant, “Crystal,” and the blue one, “Eyes.”

Crystal smiled while Eyes flashed a peace sign. 

“Crystal’s a she, and Eyes is a he.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Pronouns.” He explained. “Not alla us have...ya know...bits...anymore.” He coughed and scratched at the back of his neck. Shani smirked. He reminded her of a dad trying to give the sex talk to their teenager. “Anyways, uh, if you have a preference for what you're called you tell ‘em, so. I'm a he, by tha way.” 

He extended his hand for a shake. Shani noticed that there were fins on the outsides of his lower arms. She must have been staring because he started to draw it back. She quickly reached out and gripped his hand clapping the other over the back of his hand. Fish and his friends had saved her from failing her mission before it had even officially begun. The least she could do was treat them with the courtesy they deserve. 

“Thank you, truly.” She said. 

He smiled and rubbed the back of his neck. “We're not all shoot first ask later folks around here. Anyone who doesn't shoot at us first, or can't,” he jerked his head towards her blaster, “deserves to be heard out before we do anything we can't undo.”

Shani started to stand up. She wanted to get her blaster back in its holster and the Portal Strike on her back. Those two had been out of reach when she needed them most, and she didn't want it to happen again the next time she found herself on the receiving end of a gun. Crystal shifted uncomfortably and Eyes trained all of his eyes on her. Fish motioned for her to sit back down. 

“Just a minute,” he said, “I haven't heard yer story yet. I can't trust ya until I know why those I.D.P.D cops were after you. Or, at least not until I know what to call ya.”

“You know the I.D.P.D?” She asked. Had Hunter come through here? If he had then perhaps these mutants could lead her to him. 

“You could say that. We've all run into a group of them at one point or another. They start shootin’ as soon as they see us, though. I've seen that badge on enough o’ their corpses to recognize it now.”

The golden badge on her arm felt heavy. “My name’s Shani. I'm a...a traitor from the I.D.P.D.” 

Fish nodded and waited for her to continue. “That over there,” she pointed at the white and blue backpack, “is the Portal Strike. It's a prototype device that opens stabilized portals to any place the user wants, whether it's inside the same dimension or not.” She rubbed her hands together. Why did she feel guilty? “I stole it and ended up here.”

Fish whistled. “That’s quite a feat. Why'd you come out here out of all places?”

“A friend of mine, Hunter, got sent here on a solo mission. Not here,” she motioned toward the surrounding desert, “but somewhere in your dimension. I don't know exactly what happened, but the Captain, the head of the I.D.P.D, she wouldn't bring him back.” Shani remembered her gilded helmet and cold voice. “She said he'd gone A.W.O.L but he would never...he promised he'd be back before we knew it.”

“So you came lookin’ for him.” Fish said. 

“Yeah, I did.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “I...we've shot a lot of cops out here, kid.”

“He would be traveling on his own,” she said quickly, “and he had a jetpack. He's really short.”

“All the ones out here’ve been more or less the same, but we haven't seen any flying around.” 

She almost felt like crying. They hadn't seen Hunter, but they hadn't shot him either. There was a good chance he was still alive out there somewhere. She got to her feet before any of them could stop her. 

“I have to start looking for him.” She said before Fish could say anything. “It's a big world and there will definitely be more officers on the way.”

Fish braced his hands on his knees and stood up. She hadn't realized how short he was. The mutant barely cleared her shoulder, not counting the fin sprouting from the top of his head. 

“Kid, wait.” He put his hands out to keep her from moving around him. “The world's big, and it's also dangerous. Not every mutant’s like us. A lot of em are a lot bigger, meaner, and deadlier. You can't just go trouncin’ around on yer own.”

She glared at him. “I'm not ‘goin’ trouncin’,’” she mimicked his accent, “I'm searching for my friend. And it's not like I'm not armed. My blaster’s right there.” She leaned around him to point at her gun. 

“I'm not doubtin’ ya, kid, but going out on yer own isn't gonna get you far. Even if you make it past alla the bandits and outa the desert things get weirder the farther you go.” He ran a hand over his head, pushing his fin down flat before it sprung back up. “Let me tell them what you’ve told me. Just wait there a sec.”

Shani sat in silence while he recounted her story in the mutants’ native tongue. It was harsh and guttural, with clipped endings and unpleasant sounds. But, as he spoke, she could hear what sounded like admiration in his voice. The other two mutants listened intently. Crystal let out little gasps every so often. When Fish was done talking she clasped a hand over her heart (did she have a heart?) and looked at Shani with awe. She couldn't tell what Eyes’ reaction was, but he didn't seem to be glaring at her anymore. 

Crystal said something long in an excited tone of voice. This time she was able to pick up on her higher vocal tone through the hollow whistling of her speech. Fish nodded and asked something to which she responded with a cheerful noise. 

“Fläshyn!”

“Fläshyn,” Fish said with a nod. 

They looked at Eyes, who was doodling in the sand. He shrugged and gave a halfhearted, muffled sound of agreement. 

“Flä-okay. We're all on the same page now.” Fish coughed as he slipped back into whatever language he was using to talk with her. “Now, here's an offer for ya. You could strike out on your own searchin’ for yer friend, or you could tag along with us. We're searchin’ for something ourselves, and it's safer to travel in a group than on your own. We've got a camp set up not that far from here with a stache of ammo and guns. If you don't wanna stick around you could at least grab some before you head off.”

Crystal stepped forward and said something. 

“She says you look like you should take a nap before you do anything else.” He said smiling. 

Now that he mentioned it she realized how exhausted she was. Her head was spinning from all the new things she was learning, she was sweating under the brutal heat of the desert, and her back was still smarting from where she'd been kicked. Her legs felt very unsteady suddenly. “Yeah, yeah, I could really use a lay down.” 

“Fläshyn. I mean, come on then,” Fish slung his guitar over his back. “Crystal ‘ll carry your things.”

“No, I can-”

“There's no use fighting with her, kid. Look, she's already got it on.” 

The rock mutant was in fact already wearing the Portal Stike. She cradled Shani’s blaster in both hands, keeping them pointed in front of her so that the straps of the pack didn't slip down her arms. She didn't have shoulders to keep them in place. 

She fell in line alongside Fish as they started walking. Crystal lead, walking proudly with the Portal Strike bouncing behind her. Eyes stayed in the back of the group, scanning their surroundings for danger. For a while there was no noise save for the shifting of sand under their feet. 

“What does that word mean?” She asked. 

Fish raised a heavy brow. “What word?” 

“The one you were all saying. Uh-” she searched her memory, snapping her fingers as it surfaced. “Flasking?”

Eyes made an exclamatory noise. She whirled around, expecting to see an approaching squad of I.D.P.D officers or a department van. Instead she saw the blue mutant doubling over in laughter. She turned her back on him to hide her burning face. Fish was facing the horizon and feigning shielding his eyes from the sun, shoulders shaking. 

“Do you-” he barely managed to cover his laugh with a cough- “do you mean fläshyn?”

“Yeah that one.” She said flatly. 

“R-right.” He coughed a few more times and wiped at his eyes. “So, in our language, trashtalk-”

“Trash talk?”

“Yes, trashtalk. In trashtalk it's a kind of all-around word. It can mean ‘let's go,’ or ‘I agree,’ or ‘fine.’ It's a just like uh, what was it everybody used to say?” He scratched his chin. “Oh! ‘Okay.’ You ever hear that word?”

“Let me put that in my translator’s database. Being able to understand your language will definitely come in handy.” Shani reached for her belt. Thankfully the trip through the portal had also spared her fanny pack. It wasn't the best way of carrying supplies, but the way the Portal Strike was built didn't leave room for her to carry a rucksack at the same time. Luckily all of the standard issue I.D.P.D equipment was made to be compact and easy to carry. 

Her field tablet, when not in use, was no bigger than a box of matches. In her hand it looked like a square made of thin plastic sticks. She'd known a few officers who wore it as a bracelet in their off time. Pulling the fame made it expand, and the holographic screen popped into view. Fish watched as she started typing

“How exactly do you spell that?”

“Er, we don't write around here. We don't have a postal service or anything, so...”

“Oh.”

They walked in silence for a while longer. 

“What's it like livin’ in your place? Uh, word...word...dimension!”

“You're asking what my dimension’s like?”

“Well, I'm assumin’ there are no mutants there. No mutants no radiation no apocalypse, right? How is it?”

Shani didn't look at him. She kept her eyes on the tablet screen. The I.D.P.D dimension was the only one in the multiverse to have not been ravaged by nuclear Armageddon. How would he react if she told him? During training the instructors had always stressed that, and in order to protect their society they couldn't share any information with beings from the outside. But, if she didn't answer would he become suspicious? She decided to keep her answers vague. Besides, now that she was technically free she could slip in a bit of her personal bias. 

“Ever heard the term ‘military regime?’” 

“Oh f...shoot.” He shook his head. “Forget I asked. Wait, so is everybody there a cop?”

“More or less.” She shrugged. Truth was that the I.D.P.D hadn't risen to their current place of power until after the nuclear fallout of the other dimensions. They had still been very powerful before, but only because of their part in inter dimensional trade. After that had been stopped the organization had risen to head of national security, and then just head of the nation. Now they made the rules and ran the shops. Civilians worked for them and did as they were told. 

“Everyone gets tested once they hit their teens. Those that are promising go into boot camp, and those that pass that get inducted into the force.” 

“Geez,” he said. “What about other dimensions? They aren't all I.D.P.D, right?”

She slowly shook her head. The respirator hid almost the entire lower half of her face. He wouldn't be able to tell that she was lying, would he? “This is my first time in a different dimension. The info on other dimensions is off limits to officers. Only investigators and the Captain have access to it.”

“So you got here on pure luck?” He asked. “Do you even know this is the right place?”

She looked up at the Portal Stike. It hid Crystal from view and bounced with her step as if walking on its own. “I asked it to take me to Hunter.” She answered. “He has to be here.”

Fish grunted and said nothing. 

~\~\~

The sun was setting by the time they reached the camp. At least that's what she assumed was happening. The sky had been a murky yellow when she'd arrived. Now it had darkened to a brown-tinged, burnt orange color. She wondered if, on the other end of her respirator, the air would smell as rancid as the sky looked. 

“Nearly there,” Fish said as they hiked up a particularly tall dune. 

“What happened to the camp being ‘not that far from here?’” She asked. “You said that, like, two hours ago.”

She was stumbling up the incline. Walking over sand dunes had never been part of her training either. A while back Eyes had passed her his shovel to use as a walking stick, but now she was just struggling on three legs instead of two. He seemed to find it entertaining, at least. He made no attempt to stifle his muffled laughing. 

“Distance must work different here,” Fish grinned. 

“That or someone doesn't know where he's going,” she muttered. 

Eyes elbowed her. For a minute she thought he was upset she'd spoken behind Fish’s back. Instead he nodded and pointed at the green mutant while twirling a finger next to his head. She chuckled and he seemed pleased with himself. 

“Come on you two.” Fish had reached the top of the dune. “It's just down here.”

Eyes rolled his eyes once Fish had disappeared from view. He made frenzied hand movements that Shani could barely follow. 

“Fish...you...no...Oh! He acts like you don't know it's there?”

Eyes nodded rapidly and raised his hand. When it was met with a blank stare he grabbed her wrist and put her palm against his raised one. 

Her eyes widened. “High five?”

More nodding. 

She retrieved her hand and slapped it against his with earnest. “At least not everything here is so different,” she said smiling. 

Eyes mimed wiping sweat from his brow. Or, brows. 

Cresting the dune Shani could see the desert stretching off in all directions. Off to her side she could see blurry masses on the horizon. 

“What's that?” She asked Eyes. 

He shrugged. 

They descended the dune, Shani doing so just as gracefully as she had ascended it. Her feet kept colliding with the shovel, making her pitch forward. More than once Eyes had to grab her arm to keep her from falling. Frustrated, she thrust the shovel at him. As she did she lost her balance and fell. Eyes, who had grabbed it to try and catch her, was pulled down with her. They tumbled down the sandy incline and landed in a heap at the bottom. 

Lifting her face out of the sand she was met with a dozen angry looks. 

“Mph mm mmm mmf mm!” He fumed. The shovel clattered down after them and struck him over the head with its handle. 

She laughed at his wide-eyed shock. Maybe it was the fatigue, or how ridiculous she felt, but she just couldn't stop. She rolled onto her back and clutched her stomach, tears in her eyes. Crystal had rushed over and was checking his head while he pouted with hunched shoulders and knees drawn up to his chest. Shakily she sat up and wiped her eyes. The mutant pushed her back down, crossed his arms and looked away. 

“Ah, Eyes,” she swallowed down her giggles, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh.” 

He squinted at her, as if trying to see if she was sorry enough to be forgiven. Crystal gave him a stern look. With a signature eye roll he offered his hand to Shani and they both stood up together. He mimed running and pointed up ahead where yellow firelight twinkled in the falling dark. 

“Race there?”

They knelt into starting positions, and Crystal began what Shani assumed to be a countdown. She strained to understand what Crystal was saying, expecting Eyes to run off first because he knew the language. Instead, when the countdown reached its end he pushed her over and bolted with a triumphant laugh. 

“You filthy cheater!” She yelled after him. Under her respirator a wide smile was plastered across her face. Before Crystal could start fussing over her she jumped to her feet and ran after him. 

He was already at the fire when she reached it. He stood with his hands on his hips and chest puffed out. She braced her hands on her knees and panted. Running was one thing. Running on sand was another, much harder thing. She straightened and punched his arm. 

“Rematch. On real ground.” She huffed. 

He closed his eyes and shook his head with a shrug. Whatever you say, loser.

“Afraid I'll win?” She mocked. 

Eyes glared and pointed an accusing finger at her. You're on!

She smirked. “Great, it's a date.”

He recoiled and waved his arms, eyes screwed up in disgust. She laughed again. 

“I'm just kidding, you big baby.” 

It almost felt like she was back in her barracks laughing and shooting the shit with her squad mates. Sure, the barracks had air conditioning, but for the first time since she'd gone rogue she didn't feel a lurking sense of danger. The fire cast a warm circle, a pocket of light as the sky went completely dark. It felt like a safe place against anything bad that could happen. It felt like how the I.D.P.D had felt to her before Hunter disappeared. 

“Welcome to the camp.” Fish was perched on a piece of rock half buried in the sand, guitar back in his hands. He strummed it, ear fin twitching as he detected an off note. There were three other smooth rocks positioned around the fire, and a makeshift canopy a little ways off. Under it a menagerie of tarnished and dented shotguns, crossbows, and other weapons was stuffed in bags leaning against one of the supporting beams. Boxes of ammo littered the ground around it. 

“Where did you find all that?” She asked breathlessly. The sheer number of guns was astonishing. 

Fish fiddled with the tape on the instrument’s neck. “Found it all out here, if you'll believe me. Had to steal most of it from bandit camps.”

“You've mentioned bandits before,” she said sitting by the fire. “What are they like?”

He shook his head. “Story for tomorrow. Nighttime is for relaxing, singing and laughing. Going to bed on an upset mind does nobody any good.”

Shani nodded and watched the flames. The bandits must be some kind of enemy, she thought. Crystal trotted up to the fire and settled herself next to her. She said something in trashtalk and pointed to the weapon stache. She had set the Portal Strike next to the bulging bag. It looked as if she had also cleaned it. The white hull gleamed without a speck of sand or streak of filth in sight. 

“Thank you,” Shani said looking down at the shiny mutant. The firelight had set her facets gleaming and gave her a warm, rosy hue. She waved her hand dismissively and cupped her smooth cheek bashfully. Fish said something fondly in trashtalk and she gasped, scolding him as he chuckled. Crystal composed herself and handed over her blaster. She thanked her again and clipped it onto the strap of her fanny pack. She felt safer keeping her weapon close by for now. 

Eyes lowered himself onto one of the stone seats and stretched. Crystal produced a clean white cloth and set about rubbing it over her craggy fingers, polishing them clean. Fish hummed along with the chords he played. Shani found herself having difficulty keeping her eyes open.

“What do you think we'd be doing if we weren't I.D.P.D?”

They were in their meeting place behind the gym. The barracks were going to be full by now, and Shani didn't feel like having to shout over a million voices to have a meaningful conversation. They had them every Sunday. Behind the gym, sitting in the stiff faux grass and looking up at the pitch black sky, they'd share the life questioning thoughts that had plagued them throughout the week. 

Hunter shrugged. He was polishing his helmet’s visor. “I don't know. Run a food truck maybe? That's what I'd wanna do.”

“You want to run a food truck?” She snorted. 

“Don't you dare disrespect the magic of fried food!” He brandished his washcloth. “I would have, I don't know, shot myself in the foot or something to get discharged if the cafeteria didn't serve bacon and fries.”

“So you would run a food truck just to eat the food you were supposed to be selling?”

“Of course. My business my rules.” He set his helmet aside and reclined against the wall, hands cushioning the back of his head from the bricks. “You?”

“I don't know.” She chewed on a piece of gum.”This is the only thing I'm good at. I can't remember ever doing anything else, and I never thought about trying to, either.” She was laying flat on her back. The I.D.P.D compound was surrounded by stadium lights. They kept the stars hidden, and Shani couldn't remember the last time she'd seen them. Had she ever seen them at all?

Hunter grunted and picked at the blades of synthetic grass. “Yeah. We didn't get much choice, did we?”

“No.” The sky stared down black and barren. “No we didn't.”

Wind buffeted their faces with the fresh smell of summer. It would be sweltering hot soon, but they would still be here. Still training, still meeting for lunch, still sitting here in the dark trying to make sense of it all. 

“Hey, Shan?”

“Don't call me Shan,” she said wrinkling her nose. “That's a bitchy white woman's name.”

Hunter laughed long and hard. “Right, sorry,” he said breathlessly. He cleared his throat. “I've got a kinda dangerous question for you.”

She sat up and stretched. “Dangerous because I'll hit you, or-”

“Would you run away?” He blurted out. “If you could? If you say a chance to leave the I.D.P.D, for good, would you?” 

She glanced around, searching for security cameras or hidden microphones. 

“You shouldn't say things like that.” She whispered. 

“I know,” he said, “it's just been something I can't get out of my head. The possibility that we might abandon each other for something...better.”

There was silence between them for a long time. Shani leaned back on her elbows. She'd never thought of leaving the I.D.P.D before. Even thinking about it was treason, but at the same she wasn't sure if she was against it. The idea of living somewhere in a real house. Maybe it would have a fireplace, like in that one movie she'd seen. Oh! And there would be a dog there, curled up right in front of the fire. She blinked. Maybe there was a part of her that would jump at the opportunity to leave this life behind. But, even if she did, there was no way she could ever leave her best friend behind. 

“Let’s make a promise, then?” She sat back up and extended her hand towards him. “We never leave each other behind. Ever.”

Hunter clasped her hands with both of his, grinning. “Promise?”

She nodded. “Promise.”

“This doesn't include the bathroom, right, Shan?”

“Lean a little closer so I can hit you.”

When she opened her eyes again she was slumped against Crystal. The fire was still burning and the sky was still dark. Looking up she could see stars winking at her. The tainted air had turned them yellow and dirty, but they were still there. Stars, millions upon millions of stars spread across the sky. 

Fish had fallen asleep where he sat, head bowed to his chest and guitar clutched in his arms. To his left Eyes was sprawled on his back, a dozen or so eyes closed while the rest stared off into the distance. One rolled in her direction and blinked lazily. 

She slowly moved her weight off of the sleeping Crystal. She was warm, like a rock left out in the sun. Shani stared into the fire. The words of the I.D.P.D officers had been replaying in her head while she was asleep. 

“Rogue officers aren't allowed either,” the voice in her head echoed. 

A rogue. It was a much nicer way of saying ‘traitor.’ She reached for her shoulder and pulled off the badge. There was still a yellow badge-shaped piece of fabric there, but it would be less conspicuous than the badge itself. The golden emblem glittered in her hand. She'd had it for almost her whole life. It had been everything to her since she was old enough to hold a blaster. Now, after one day, it wasn't part of her anymore. The Captain had probably scrubbed her badge number from the I.D.P.D database, or more likely put it on some kind of public enemy list. 

“Whatcha thinking about, kid?”

She jumped at the fish man’s voice. He rolled his neck, eliciting sharp cracks. “Something bothering ya?” He set aside his guitar. 

She sighed. “I'm just trying to process it all, honestly.” She ran a thumb over the raised initials. “The only thing I've ever done isn't part of me anymore. I'm never going home, or if I do, it'll be so they can court martial me. It's...a lot to deal with.”

“I can imagine.” He scratched behind one of his fins. “Went through somethin’ kind of similar.”

She looked up at him. “Really?”

He shrugged. “Before this I'd only ever been a human. Now I'm a fish.”

She slapped her forehead. “Ack! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-”

“Kid, relax. We didn't survive this long just to get touchy when people talk about what happened.” He leaned back and watched the stars. “We just keep going. Looking forward every step.”

Shani searched the muddy sky for constellations. “How did you do it? Keep going after it all?”

“I decided to keep doing what I'd always done. Try to make the world a better place. I didn't make much headway back then, but I think I might have a better chance now.” He gestured toward the surrounding sands. “Things can only go up from here, right?”

“But what about the…?”

“The giant walking fish part?” He grinned. “So far there's nothing I can do to change it, so I just got used to it.” He flexed his webbed hands. “Considering I could've ended up much worse, I just accepted it. Better than going around hating myself. Besides, not everyday you get a second chance to become somebody new.” He picked up his guitar and plucked out a soft, quiet melody. “That's one good thing about the apocalypse, I guess. You can leave all of your old troubles behind and learn new things.” He laughed. “And get new troubles too.”

She took one last, long look at her badge. If this were a movie she would stand up, turn towards the shadow swathed sand, and throw it as far as she could. Instead she unzipped her fanny pack and nestled it inside. Solid gold was probably a rare occurrence in a nuclear wasteland. It would doubtlessly come in handy at some point. She was an ex-cop on the run, traveling with a band of mutants and in search of a lost friend. She hadn't gotten to choose what her new self would be, but she did get a say in one thing. 

“Hey, Fish?”

“Yeah, kid?”

She traced the yellow tinted Big Dipper with her eyes. “Remember what you said earlier, about your names being what people say when they look at you?”

“Yeah?” Another soft, finely-tuned chord. 

“Would you mind calling me Rouge?”

He smiled. “Not at all, Rouge.”

Unbidden, tears sprang to her eyes. “Hunter would say that it's a badass name.”

“Well, he'd be right.” If he noticed the tremor in her voice he didn't show it. “Sounds like we'll get along, him and I.”

“You really think he's out here somewhere?”

“Yep. That's another thing I've figured out about the apocalypse. Brings a lot of people together; usually it's the ones you need the most.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I did get Rogue’s “name” from a name genorator. I honestly couldn’t come up with a good one myself. Sorry about that. 
> 
> Also! The Hunter and Rogue memory moments are supposed to be italicized but AO3 wouldn’t carry it over!! >: (


End file.
